Ehrlich reliably arrogant and ill-informed [Letter]

When I read Mr. Ehrlich's column ("An open letter to the NAACP," Nov. 17), I, too, was struck by his use of the word "prowess" early on in his column. But I was not surprised. I have considered Mr. Ehrlich an arrogant "jock" ever since his debate with Kathleen Kennedy Townsend in their Maryland gubernatorial race. Mr. Ehrlich won the race but not the debate.

Before the debate, I had read in the press a number of times that Ms. Townsend was not good "on her feet." Just before the debate, I read that Mr. Ehrlich was not putting a lot of effort in preparing for it because he felt he didn't need to. My immediate reaction was this guy must be good. Then I watched the debate. Mr. Ehrlich's lack of preparation was obvious. Ms. Townsend was more than adequate. She won the debate on style as well as substance. Unfortunately, the debate did not get a lot of after-the-fact coverage, at least not in The Washington Post, which I used to read when I lived in the D.C. suburbs.

I now live in Baltimore. I will say two things for this latest Ehrlich column — it was devoid of bullet points which I consider a writer's crutch and always leads me to question whether the point is original to the author or taken from some other source (like the Heritage think tank in Mr. Ehrlich's case). And this time, he did not mix fact with fiction like he did in a previous column, citing in bullet point the number of pages in the Affordable Care Act and then throwing in the same bullet point that the ACA had created the largest federal tax increase ever, something I had not heard previously.